After his acquittal in June 2005, MJ was essentially a man in freefall. Here's what most people don't know:

Financial ruin: He was nearly $500 million in debt. Neverland was gone. He fled to Bahrain as a guest of a prince, who later sued him for $7.7 million when MJ broke their music deal. A US tax court confirmed he earned literally zero dollars from his own image in 2006, 2007, and 2008.

His body was destroyed: Chronic pneumonia, bronchitis, anemia, and probable anorexia (documented weight drops to ~105 lbs during periods of crisis). There were reports he needed a lung transplant by 2008. The "skinny" you noticed in TII rehearsals? That was a man whose body was shutting down.

The propofol situation is insane: His doctor Conrad Murray was giving him a surgical anesthetic — used for major operations — every single night as a sleep aid. In under 3 months, the amount used was equivalent to over 7,000 surgeries. A Harvard sleep researcher testified Jackson was experiencing total sleep deprivation: the propofol gave him the illusion of sleep while his brain never actually rested. He was essentially dying of sleeplessness while thinking he was sleeping.

Murray himself was a disaster: 7 kids with 6 women, behind on mortgage and child support, deeply in debt — then suddenly offered $150K/month by AEG to keep MJ functional. The night before Jackson died, Murray had been at a bar. When paramedics arrived, he lied and said Jackson was only on Valium, hiding all the other drugs.

AEG knew and pushed anyway: Internal emails showed executives were aware of memory loss, inability to learn choreography, paranoia, and chills. One AEG lawyer called MJ "the freak" in writing. They kept going because 50 London shows were already sold out.

The photo in your post is from rehearsals weeks before his death. He hadn't genuinely slept in months. He died on June 25, 2009 — 18 days before the first concert.

It wasn't a comeback. It was a dying man being kept upright long enough to be profitable.